Criminalizing Tobacco Smoking Is Waste Of Money

May 13, 1994

With all the fuss over the tobacco industry spiking their product with excess nicotine, perhaps now is the time to outlaw cigarettes. But judging by the number of people who continue to smoke after suffering life-threatening medical problems, a new class of criminals would be created overnight. If a knock at death's door can't stop them, government edict surely won't.

Can't you just see it? All those poor, wretched souls who now huddle outside office buildings, restaurants, and shopping malls, scurrying around the back alleys and the underbelly of the city searching for a pusher to slip them three crudely rolled, homegrown cigarettes for a $20 bill.

Of course we'd need more law enforcement to combat this highly profitable, nefarious actively. We'd also need more judges and juries and prison cells. Rival pushers would attempt hostile takeovers, causing gunplay and bloodshed. The profits generated would spawn among pushers a world of corruption and opulent lifestyles. They would surely recruit the young into the alluring life of tobacconist.

The result? Billions of dollars sunk into the criminal world all tax free, all corrupting, and all financed by the American taxpayer. And how many addicts would stop smoking?

Maybe the smoker's drug addiction should be treated as a medical/social problem rather than a criminal justice crisis.